Thanks for RoadTrailRun shout out Grumble! My brand of the year Saucony and below excerpt from my personal year in review. We surveyed our 20 testers and Saucony won the overall vote for Road. Overall shoes of the year: Endorphin Speed and for trail Inov-8 Terraultra G 270. My personal top picks adios Pro and G 270.
“ Saucony came out in 2020 with not only the all new Endorphin line but updates to literally every single model road and trail during during the year.
They simplified midsoles using 3 types of midsole foams across all shoes road and trail. They also refined and yes simplified all uppers and beautifully so. And they did away with confusing ISO naming going to simple numbering for models and got rid of ISO too. ISO was an often awkward approach to fit for me.
Saucony replaced ISO across the board with FormFit which starts at the midsole and works its way through the footbed and upper, to deliver excellent “forming” of the foot to the platform.
Every Saucony proved excellent in my testing, not super flash but just carefully considered improvements of real benefit. Special notes for me in 2020 were Endorphin Shift, the Ride 13 and Xodus 10, all more trainers than racers because as the year went on other options I preferred for racing emerged.. And special kudos to the Saucony team (and all brands o locked out of their offices and access to test samples to send) for pulling this all off in such a challenging year and for publicly revealing all of their 2020 line in December 2019 at the Running Event and then delivering in such a challenging year.
Honorable mentions:
New Balance delivered a wide variety of ride experiences based on FuelCell and improved Fresh Foam X with special note the FuelCell in the TC and RC.
Nike continued to "shock" with the Alphafly and Tempo Next pushing boundaries in new and interesting directions but went to far with their mainstay men's Peg 37 for me by somehow overemphasizing gender "preferences" in ride feel leaving the superb softer lighter and smoother women's Peg ride for smaller men's feet.
adidas was a one trick pony with their adios Pro but suspect not for long in road as they are on a roll with the lessons learned. Their Terrex division delivered a fantastic Boost and BOA based winter and rough conditions shoe in the Terrex Agravic Tech Pro
ASICS which had a lot to remodel, delighted with the elegant Metaracer, the Novablast and Dynablast, improved on Evoride and Glideride, and in a late in 2020 a surprise for 2021, a superb trail shoe in the Trabuco Max.
Brooks came out in relatively rapid succession with 2 versions of their Hyperion Elite marathon racer while staying the course, pretty much, with their road line stalwarts. Brooks really shone most brightly in trail with their all arounder the Caldera 4 and a new fast and light shoe the Catamount with the same foam as the second Hyperion and Tempo and in superb $100 shoes: the Revel and new Divide trail runner, a price category most welcome in this challenging year for so many.
Skechers continued to push the envelope with lighter and lighter shoes based on Hyperburst with plates in the mix and generally lower stacks than the marathon super shoes with the Speed Elite fantastic for shorter fast efforts.
Inov-8 long a trail shoe specialist, known for firm, agile and snug rough terrain shoes struck gold for me (and our team as it was the team’s shoe of the year as well as mine) with a seeming, by looks and basic stats alone, “ minor update” to the Terraultra G 260, the G 270. From its exciting to run and protective re formulated bouncier midsole, innovative springy footbed, outstanding light and secure upper and of course Graphene Grip outsole it was an easy pick for my trail shoe of the year in a very crowded field of great shoes.”
Our year end articles and the survey including picks from 2 contributors who were on podiums for their AG at 2019 World Marathon Majors here:
https://www.roadtrailrun.com/p/2020-shoes-and-gear-of-year-for-road.htm